This combination of pictures created on September 10,2025 shows, Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation, in Tokyo on April 9, 2014 and Elon Musk in Washington,DC on November 13,2024. Photo: VCG
Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, briefly surpassed Elon Musk to become the world's richest person on Wednesday after a jump in Oracle shares added a record amount to his fortune, according to a report by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
But Oracle' share price shed some of those gains by the end of the day, putting Musk back on top again.
Ellison's wealth soared $89 billion after Oracle reported quarterly results that surpassed analysts' expectations and said there's more growth to come, Bloomberg reported. The increase lifted his total net worth to $383.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
It's the biggest one-day increase ever recorded, and put him ahead of Musk for much of Wednesday before Tesla CEO edged back into pole position by $1 billion, per the report.
The jump came after shares in Oracle, which make up a significant part of Ellison's fortune, soared more than 40 percent, boosted by the database software company's surprisingly rosy outlook for its cloud infrastructure business and artificial intelligence deals, according to report by BBC on Wednesday.
Before briefly losing it to Ellison, Musk had held the title of world's richest person for nearly one year. But shares in Musk's most valuable business, Tesla, have fallen this year.
Musk, 54, became the world's richest person for the first time in 2021 before losing the title to Amazon's Jeff Bezos and LVMH's Bernard Arnault. He reclaimed the title last year and has held it for just over 300 days.
Ellison, 81 year-old, who co-founded Oracle and is now chairman and chief technology officer, has the bulk of his net worth tied up in the database software company.
The Bloomberg report said that Oracle's shares, which had gained 45 percent so far this year, surged 36 percent on Wednesday after the company posted a major increase in bookings and gave an aggressive outlook for its cloud infrastructure business. It's the company's largest single-day gain since 1992.
Oracle has recently been propelled by growing market demand for data centers. The company projected as part of its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that revenue from its cloud business will jump 77 percent this year, to reach $18 billion, with further growth expected in the coming years, the BBC report said.
Following Oracle's earnings report, multiple Wall Street firms adjusted their price targets upward for the company.
Wolfe Research significantly increased its target price from $300 to $400, which suggests a market capitalization of $1.12 trillion. Bank of America raised its target price from $295 to $368. Jefferies also lifted Oracle's target price from $270 to $360, Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.
Global Times
